From “The Last Great Guns” by Arletta Snuggs

The old bridge was in ruins, its spans long since collapsed by artillery fire, yet the citizens had found a use for the great pylons that had once supported it. They now held massive high-caliber artillery pieces, from which the river could be commanded for a mile either way. No one but the city’s own ships, few though they were anymore, could pass safely beneath the maw of the last great guns produced by the Enfer Works.

Eventually, the guns fell–and with them, the city’s final lifeline–when the enemy admiral attacked with fast, small boats under the cover of darkness. Too small to be sunk by the cannons themselves, and too numerous to be repelled by the small garrisons, each pylon fell silent one after the other. Those desperate battles would be the last, for the generals saw fit to leave the city to rot and tear itself apart so they could walk between its bones unopposed.